Happy Doomsday: A Novel

by David Sosnowski

  “Wait,” he called as mother and daughter bent for their suitcases, Olivia pausing and turning to check on whether he was coming or not.

  “I’m not packed.” Dev stalled.

  Lucy tapped Kay on the shoulder—a cue, apparently. “Already done,” she said, and each lifted a suitcase out of the way, like curtains parting. Behind stood two more suitcases, the name “Dev” scrawled across them in chalk.

  “You don’t have to leave your comfort zone,” Lucy said, revealing that knack Dev envied: the seeming ability to read other people’s minds.

  “I don’t?”

  “Just make it portable,” she said, casting a downward glance at her daughter, the one whose only baggage was wholly literal and came with its own handles.

  “But what if it’s all a waste of time?”

  “Good thing we got plenty, then.”

  The odds were long, he’d thought, but maybe not. In about a year, three survivors who’d persisted had found each other, and they’d each found at least one of the other kind of survivor as well. And if there were other pockets out there like theirs, who’d survived long enough to create even one more human life half as precious as the one Lucy and he were raising . . . Well, the odds could be getting better every day. Not for Dev—the Wizard of Odd, as his stepfather once dubbed him—but for the ones who’d survive the original survivors: call them Generation Clean Slate or—even better—Generation OK, the one for whom the end of everything was just the beginning.

  “Okay,” Dev said, echoing the most hopeful sound to cross his mind lately.

  “Yes?” the girl with the optimistic initials said before grinning a mischievous five-year-old’s grin.

  “Can you hold my hand?” Dev asked, holding out his own.

  Kay could. She did.

  “After you, O Queen of the Future,” he said, as Her Highness led the way.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As many writers know, writing a book can often be the easy part, especially nowadays in the ever-changing world of publishing, which is why those of us who are exceedingly lucky have found agents to take on the heavy lifting. I count myself luckier than most because my agent, Jane Dystel, has not only been a tireless champion for me, my career, and the book you now hold in your hands, but whether she knows it or not, she was also instrumental in giving me the push needed to have a book to sell in the first place. It’s easy to lose steam when working on a long project; it’s easier still to never get up a head of steam to begin with. For a long time with Happy Doomsday, I was content to entertain myself by jotting down notes and the odd scene here and there, holding off on the actual writing because it’s difficult to reject an unwritten book. But when Jane heard about the idea I was toying with, her enthusiasm combined with my total faith in her judgment helped crank up the heat, got my butt in the chair, and got this book written. And for that, Jane, and for everything else you have done, I am forever in your debt.

  And then there are the people who said yes: the excellent team at Amazon Publishing, first among them Jason Kirk at 47North, whose enthusiasm for and faith in this project helped fuel my own. As acquiring editor, Jason not only “got” my book in the sense of the sale, but he also “got it,” at a level that writers dream of when they dream of the ideal reader, one whose enthusiasm becomes advocacy and—best of all—contagious.

  Which brings me to LAM, a.k.a. Leslie Miller, CEO/COO of Girl Friday Productions, one of the people Jason “infected” with his love of the project. LAM’s guiding editorial hand and thoughtful suggestions helped make the revision process every bit as fun and exhilarating as the initial creative spark that led to the first draft. Like Jane, and then Jason, LAM “got it,” which in turn helped me get the story to where it needed to be.

  I’d also like to thank everybody else at Amazon Publishing who had a hand in bringing this dream to life, including Kristin King, who made the publishing process both welcoming and fun; Laura Petrella, who made sure I kept my facts and inventions straight; Tim Green and Faceout Studio, who were responsible for the book’s overall look; and Marlene Kelly, Haley Kushman, Colleen Lindsay, Kyla Pigoni, Brittany Russell, and Kelsey Snyder, who made sure the word got out to those wonderful creatures we’re all indebted to: the people who buy (and read!) books.

  Finally, but with no less gratitude, I’d like to thank the others who helped along the way, with encouragement, editorial advice, or good old-fashioned moral support, both on this side of the mortal divide and the other one. Among these champions, I count Miriam Goderich, Jim McCarthy, and everybody else at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret LLC; Josie Kearns (my earliest reader and most honest critic); my late friend Mark Schemanske for haunting me as I wrote; my parents, Eugene and Florence Sosnowski, both of whom have passed but whose influences are with me every day; my fellow survivors in missing our parents: my sisters, Susan Dudek and Kathleen Rodriguez, and my brother and fellow artist, Mike; and, lastly but certainly not least, the fans of my previous books, Rapture and Vamped, for emailing and friending and asking (always politely though not always patiently) when the next one was coming out. Here you go, guys: The Next One. Out. I hope it was worth the wait.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  David Sosnowski has worked as a gag writer, fireworks salesman, telephone pollster, university writing instructor, and environmental-protection specialist while living in places as different as Washington, DC; Detroit, Michigan; and Fairbanks, Alaska. In a novelistic twist, David currently lives in a Michigan home previously owned by the sixth-grade English teacher who inspired him to write. A winner of the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize, David has had his short fiction appear in numerous magazines, including Passages North, River City, and Alaska Quarterly Review. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed novels Rapture and Vamped.